IV + 

The apartment in the Avenue de la Grande Armée was as tidy as Valérie’s had been untidy. From the miniature kitchen to the miniature salon, everything shone as though recently polished, for here in spite of restricted finances, no dust was allowed to harbour. + 

Mademoiselle Duphot beamed on her guests as she herself opened the door to admit them. “For me this is very real joy,” she declared. Then she introduced them to her sister Julie, whose eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. + 

The salon was literally stuffed with what Mademoiselle had described as her “treasures.” On its tables were innumerable useless objects which appeared for the most part, to be mementoes. Coloured prints of Bouguereaus hung on the walls, while the chairs were upholstered in a species of velvet so hard as to be rather slippery to sit on, yet that when it was touched felt rough to the fingers. The woodwork of these inhospitable chairs had been coated with varnish until it looked sticky. Over the little inadequate fireplace smiled a portrait of Maman when she was quite young. Maman, dressed in tartan for some strange reason, but in tartan that had never hobnobbed with the Highlands⁠—a present this portrait had been from a cousin who had wished to become an artist. + 

Julie extended a white, groping hand. She was like her sister only very much thinner, and her face had the closed rather blank expression that is sometimes associated with blindness. + 

“Which is Stévenne?” she inquired in an anxious voice; “I have heard so much about Stévenne!” + 

Stephen said: “Here I am,” and she grasped the hand, pitiful of this woman’s affliction. + 

But Julie smiled broadly. “Yes, I know it is you from the feel,”⁠—she had started to stroke Stephen’s coat-sleeve⁠—“my eyes have gone into my fingers these days. It is strange, but I seem to see through my fingers.” Then she turned and found Puddle whom she also stroked. “And now I know both of you,” declared Julie. + 

The tea when it came was that straw-coloured liquid which may even now be met with in Paris. + 

“English tea bought especially for you, my Stévenne,” remarked Mademoiselle proudly. “We drink only coffee, but I said to my sister, Stévenne likes the good tea, and so, no doubt, does Mademoiselle Puddle. At four o’clock they will not want coffee⁠—you observe how well I remember your England!” + 

However, the cakes proved worthy of France, and Mademoiselle ate them as though she enjoyed them. Julie ate very little and did not talk much. She just sat there and listened, quietly smiling; and while she listened she crocheted lace as though, as she said, she could see through her fingers. Then Mademoiselle Duphot explained how it was that those delicate hands had become so skilful, replacing the eyes which their ceaseless labour had robbed of the blessed privilege of sight⁠—explained so simply yet with such conviction, that Stephen must marvel to hear her. + 

“It is all our little Thérèse,” she told Stephen. “You have heard of her? No? Ah, but what a pity! Our Thérèse was a nun at the Carmel at Lisieux, and she said: ‘I will let fall a shower of roses when I die.’ She died not so long ago, but already her Cause has been presented at Rome by the Very Reverend Father Rodrigo! That is very wonderful, is it not, Stévenne? But she does not wait to become a saint; ah, but no, she is young and therefore impatient. She cannot wait, she has started already to do miracles for all those who ask her. I asked that Julie should not be unhappy through the loss of her eyes⁠—for when she is idle she is always unhappy⁠—so our little Thérèse has put a pair of new eyes in her fingers.” + 

Julie nodded. “It is true,” she said very gravely; “before that I was stupid because of my blindness. Everything felt very strange, and I stumbled about like an old blind horse. I was terribly stupid, far more so than many. Then one night Véronique asked Thérèse to help me, and the next day I could find my way round our room. From then on my fingers saw what they touched, and now I can even make lace quite well because of this sight in my fingers.” Then turning to the smiling Mademoiselle Duphot: “But why do you not show her picture to Stévenne?” + 

So Mademoiselle Duphot went and fetched the small picture of Thérèse, which Stephen duly examined, and the face that she saw was ridiculously youthful⁠—round with youth it still was, and yet very determined. Sœur Thérèse looked as though if she really intended to become a saint, the devil himself would be hard put to it to stop her. Then Puddle must also examine the picture, while Stephen was shown some relics, a piece of the habit and other things such as collect in the wake of sainthood. + 

When they left, Julie asked them to come again; she said: “Come often, it will give us such pleasure.” Then she thrust on her guests twelve yards of coarse lace which neither of them liked to offer to pay for. + 

Mademoiselle murmured: “Our home is so humble for Stévenne; we have very little to offer.” She was thinking of the house in the Rue Jacob, a grand house, and then too she remembered Morton. + 

But Julie, with the strange insight of the blind, or perhaps because of those eyes in her fingers, answered quickly: “She will not care, Véronique, I cannot feel that sort of pride in your Stévenne.” + 